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With the spooky found-footage horror The Quiet Ones coming out recently and The Signal coming out in June, Bates Motel star Olivia Cooke is well on her way to becoming one of the horror genre’s hottest young stars.

However, she isn’t the first celeb to get her start in the world of spooks, monsters and serial killers. Some of Hollywood’s best-known A-listers got their big break in horror.

In honor of Olivia Cooke’s burgeoning career in scary movies, and because we just love the genre, here are stars who started in horror…

While no one wants to die in a horrible apocalypse, sometimes you have to wonder what it would be like to survive the end of the world; Avoiding roving bands of cannibals while scavenging for food, clothes and, for some reason, gasoline. Would you have the chops to keep the hordes of wasteland raiders, giant mutant animals and nuclear zombies at bay? It seems as though the lawlessness of the bleak, empty deserts, where humanity no longer stands, has a strong appeal to all young people who have always wanted to pull a sawed-off shotgun from a hip holster and blow two holes through some dude in a hockey mask and a mohawk.

Hollywood has been exploring this concept thoroughly. With The Rover, Edge Of Tomorrow, Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes, After Earth, Elysium, Oblivion, This Is the End, World War Z, Snowpiercer, The Colony and many other films released or set to be released, it gives us a chance to go into the ol’ video vault for the 7 Best Post-Apocalyptic Wastelands.

Getting that first feature film in the can is an amazing experience, but it isn’t always a successful one. Hollywood is littered with bad debut films, especially in this current age of inexpensive filmmaking. But sometimes, the stars align and that first feature comes out just the way you had been hoping since you first conceived it. Or, in the case of old-timey studio pictures, the studio took a chance on you, and you came through with flying colors. It’s good to celebrate these first feature films that give all us filmmakers hope for our debuts.

These aren’t the only great directorial debuts, but they are my very favorite…